Sarfraz urges foreign cricket boards to consider playing in Pakistan

KARACHI: Pakistan captain Sarfaraz Ahmed on Thursday thanked the Sri Lankan team for visiting Pakistan and urged other foreign boards to also reconsider their approach towards Pakistan.

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Addressing a press conference a day ahead of first one-day international (ODI) between host Pakistan and visiting Sri Lanka at the National Stadium, Karachi tomorrow, the skipper said that international cricket is incomplete without Pakistan.

Sarfraz said, “Pakistan has delivered a clear message and now it’s time for other boards to reconsider their approach towards playing in Pakistan. Being a team and a nation, I request all boards to support cricket in Pakistan.”

Talking about the pitch and the field in Karachi, he said, “We haven’t seen the pitch as yet, I have only an idea that which type of pitches are made in stadiums here.”

Skipper, playfully using a phrase uttered by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari about rains in Sindh that had gone viral on social media, said, “as far as out field is concerned I would say that ‘when it rains, water comes down’.”

“It is easy to claim that we will score 450 or 500 runs but to achieve this target an entire process is required. In modern-day cricket, the role of the first three to four batsmen has become very crucial,” he said.

“All those teams scoring more than 300 runs are able to do so through a set-up under which openers show an exemplary start and the rest of the team carries it (forward). In order to score 400 runs, we need a set-up and we are planning to have it,” he added.

“If you review the performance of the team during the past two and a half years, it has improved tremendously. We scored 300 runs during the World Cup; we have scored 350 and even touched 370,” the captain said while talking about performance of the Green Shirts.

“Our cricket is improving and we are trying to go ahead with this team,” he further added.

He was confident that his decision to change the batting order to provide opportunity to other players for playing in opening positions was right.